Dagang Feng
Analyst · CICC
[Interpreted] Thank you. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining our first quarter 2023 earnings conference call. As the pandemic's impact faded away, we are delighted to report stellar financial results, delivering double-digit revenue growth in the first quarter of 2023. Our total revenue reached to RMB 55.5 million, up 12% year-over-year, with extensive growth across all 3 of our primary business segments.
For our segments, our Advertising revenue reached RMB 41.9 million, up 11% year-over-year. Our Enterprise Value-Added Services delivered revenue of RMB 10.0 million, up 7% year-over-year. And revenue from our Subscription Services jumped 36% year-over-year. These achievements across the board are the direct result of our consistent efforts in forging ahead with content, product and technologies, ushering in a new phase of high-quality business growth.
Let me start with content. As we expanded our content coverage to new industries, we also continued to direct more attention to leading enterprises and major events, while stepping up our output of exclusive reports, offering users a holistic and insightful professional content experience. The number of our blockbusters that are topping is on the rise.
In the first quarter, we had around 160 articles with PVs exceeding 100,000, many of which covered heated topics and which have more than 200,000 page views, including a story featuring Robin Li, founder of Baidu; an article on TikTok CEO, Shou Zi Chew, face off with the U.S. Congress; and the piece covering the 24 hours after Silicon Valley Bank collapsed is hitting over 200,000 page views.
These thought provoking articles, among others, showcased 36Kr's leading insights and industry influence. Our enhanced content influence also contributed to significant growth in our user base. As of the end of the first quarter, we had more than 29 million followers, up 22% year-over-year.
Since the beginning of 2023, we have been closely following the latest developments in booming industries, including generative AI and large language models. In response to current trends, we soon launch the new WeChat account that merges intelligence to provide in-depth coverage on the AI areas transformation across multiple industries.
In the first quarter, we also rolled out PowerOn, a WeChat account focusing on the evolution of the auto industry enabled by intellectualization and new energy text. These 2 verticals have laid a solid foundation for us to advance our ongoing initiatives in AI and the EV sector, further enhancing our growth potential.
In addition, many long anticipated industry events are finally underway. 36Kr has been on the front lines covering the latest developments on-site through multiple channels, such as breaking news, photo galleries and on-site video reports. Notable examples from the first quarter include CES, MWC and AWE.
Specifically, we leveraged our first-hand perspective of the Shanghai Auto Expo to deliver comprehensive in-depth reports on the exhibition as well as new car model comparisons, various auto enterprises from home and abroad, the differentiation between traditional vehicles and EVs and a broad cohort of industry VIPs.
We also took this opportunity to roll-out and upgrade to 36Kr's auto content metrics with our PowerOn WeChat account, Future Auto Daily WeChat account and the WeChat Video account titled 36Kr Auto. These channels not only delivered rich insightful content to users, but also allows us to tap into the EV market's strong growth momentum and massive market potential, accelerating our electric vehicle industry coverage to ultimately generate greater revenue upside.
I also want to highlight our short video business. In the first quarter of 2023, we built upon an outstanding content generating and production capabilities, driving huge surge in user numbers. Our number of short video followers exceeded 8 million, a remarkable 42% year-over-year increase. 36Kr became the first ever industry pioneer in using AI technologies to create an e-commerce store throughout the whole process.
The AI Taobao store LumiWink is in operation now and the AI design products are popular. These are convincing demonstrations of our AI tech sensitivity and foresight. For instance, our original video AI opened a Taobao with AI robots, which features the key steps of 36Kr's experimental opening of our Taobao stores using AI technologies, including naming and establishing the store product design, image generation and copyrighting.
The AI technologies greatly improved efficiency while reducing costs of the store's operations. This original video was listed as hot and trendy by Bilibili, Weibo and Toutiao and attracted over 35 million clicks and more than 80,000 likes. It also triggered continued official follow-ups on this topic by Taobao. The organic combination of know-how expertise and AI technologies diversified our revenue-generating channels, unlocking more value for our company.
In addition, we have made major strides in long video content production and recently launched our first talk show for season 2023. In the first season, I conducted in-depth interviews with industry tycoons, including Robin Li, founder of Baidu; [ Shi Wang ], founder of China Vanke; James Liang co-founder of Trip.com Group; Jiangming Zhu founder of Leapmotor; and Zhenyu Luo founder of Dedao, captivating audiences with fascinating insights into the future.
Foreseeing 2033, we're simultaneously live streamed on Youku station -- video and television station and HUNAN BROADCASTING SYSTEM, marking our success in building a full coverage content dissemination network with long video platforms and TV channels.
These add to our established and growing reach across social media outlets, expanding our content landscape and closed-loop ecosystem, which further enriches 36Kr's content ecosystem and encourages synergies among our diverse formats, including long- and short-form videos as well as text, graphics and audio mediums, unlocking our further growth potential.
In terms of products, we further improved the 36Kr Venture Capital platform's ability to notify and approach end users, including entrepreneurs and investors in the first quarter. In addition, we fully upgraded a featured mini program by enhancing the operations and recommendations in highly specialized and innovative enterprises, popular deals and created portfolios.
The platform's key indicators all substantially increased, including [ matching fees paid ], number of active investors and new entrepreneurs as well as platform traffic. In the first quarter of 2023, the 36Kr Venture Capital platform efficiently connected over 5,000 tech start-ups with funding investors, providing valuable support for their growth.
Before I move on to commercialization, let me briefly update you on our AIGC initiatives. Over the years, 36Kr has always paid close attention to the most advanced frontiers of tech development. As AIGC technologies evolved, we leveraged its natural fit with the content production and actively applied generative AI text to our business, integrating these technologies with our content ecosystem and product R&D.
We focused on actively integrating AI text into image generation, text translation, data collection and other areas, as well as leveraging AI text to open the Taobao store, as I just mentioned, for higher production efficiency, lower operation cost and revenue increase.
This enterprise service revenue platform also quickly adopted AIGC text to provide our users with more precise and efficient overall product information and decision-making support. And we implemented chatbot technology for smart, efficient customer service.
In summary, we fortified our content ecosystem, accumulated product advantages and increased ourselves with AI text during the quarter. These advances consistently boosted our commercialization capabilities and have enabled our steady revenue growth.
Next, I'd like to share the details of our commercialization progress. In the first quarter of 2023, our total revenue increased by 12% year-on-year to RMB 55.5 million and we achieved growth across all 3 of our primary business segments. Notably, our Advertising revenue reached RMB 41.9 million, up 11% year-over-year. The number of advertising customers grew to 147, up 9% year-over-year with ARPU increasing to RMB 285,000, up 2.3% year-over-year.
Leveraging our deep understanding on customers' brand positioning on target audiences, 36Kr offers one-stop marketing solutions centered on branding and expertise. In the first quarter, many tech giants and global 500 companies renewed their annual service contracts with us. At the same time, we also expanded our customer base amongst small and medium-sized enterprises. On top of that, we received recognition from global giants such as Amazon, Meta and Tesla for the notable results they achieved from improved brand communications based on our forging brand globalization initiative camps.
For instance, for Meta, we invited experts in global business expansion to conduct speeches and interviews with companies to exchange ideas about brand globalization and connect Chinese companies with overseas platforms, lending both sides a bigger voice in brand communications.
In addition, we've ventured into new industries and joined hands with Gree, creating potential revenue upside in the home appliance industry. We also renewed contracts with top brands, including Samsung, Haier, Midea and Joyoung. These achievements confirmed our advertising and marketing expertise while also demonstrating our strong capabilities in expanding and enhancing constructive partnerships.
Our short video business also delivered another quarter of stellar results. We launched an array of popular programs covering diverse topics, including technological innovation business insights and lifestyles. These programs drew us both praise and recognition from advertisers in various sectors, including our first quarter short video customers, such as Hewlett Packard, Huawei, Intel and China Jingjiu.
Among these programs, we partnered with Qualcomm Snapdragon to help them fully showcase and disseminate Snapdragon products, while compelling communications, including behind-the-scenes stories and KOL marketing, lifting our contract size to another new record high.
With respect to Enterprise Value-Added Services, we experienced a rally in various businesses, including offline events and activities as the pandemic receded, driving revenue up 7% year-over-year to RMB 10.0 million during the first quarter. Also to capitalize on the rise of AI, large language models, we hosted the all-new WISE 2023 AIGC Summit, sharing ideas with various AI industry giants, including Microsoft, iFLYTEK, Baidu, SenseTime and other leading enterprises to explore the road ahead for the AIGC industry as next-generation technologies take hold, further enhancing 36Kr's industry influence and delivering positive commercialization results.
On integrated marketing side, in the first quarter, we continue to expand our service content, providing diversified offerings, including agency service operations for both original WeChat accounts and original video platforms as well as KOC businesses. These new features facilitated the continued expansion of our customer base. We also entered into cooperation agreements with renowned companies, including [ Yaapi ] and Huatai Securities, spurring an increase in our integrated marketing revenue.
As for Subscription services, we continued to optimize our membership system and subscription products, substantially increasing our revenue scale by 36% year-over-year. We paid particular attention to the optimization of 36Kr business school, actively developing growth-oriented entrepreneurship courses by improving course design and training programs, while increasing class frequency, which vastly raised the ARPU of our individual subscription services to RMB 150,000.
Last but not the least, I'd like to share an update on the 36Kr Enterprise Services review platform. In the first quarter of 2023, we continued to improve and optimize its product library, adding basic information such as product reference cases, pricing and parameters.
We also completed product mapping in 9 core areas, including SCRM, new retail and e-commerce, increasing our product classification accuracy rate to over 95%. Furthermore, while optimizing the platform functions, we revamped the interfaces of both PC and mobile devices.
By further improving the reading module and search functions, we made the product more accessible and easier to use. As a result, the conversion rate from platform business to a more profile creation nearly doubled year-over-year. In addition, we adopted AIGC text to automatically generate product descriptions and responses to user inquiries. With this support in enhancing user experience, our platform's operational efficiency increased by over 10x year-over-year.
In short, our ongoing product function enhancements have comprehensively improved the convenience, efficiency and intelligence level of the 36Kr Enterprise Services review platform, reflected by rapid growth in its operating metrics across the board.
As of the first quarter of 2023, the cumulative number of reviews exceeded 60,000, up 198% year-over-year. The cumulative number of products on the platform reached nearly 9,000, up 55% year-over-year, and the number of merchants on the platform topped 1,200, doubling year-over-year.
In terms of commercialization, this quarter, we implemented our next iteration of commercialization for the 36Kr Enterprise Services review platform, building upon the existing offerings of brand promotion and content marketing. We reinforced our integrated service capabilities and successfully built an all-new business model featuring lead generation and commission services, further empowering enterprise customer acquisition and decision-making support.
Our new profit generating model has begun to bear fruit as we have received payments from 12 SaaS enterprises. Going forward, we will further enhance the platform service capabilities and provide enterprise customers with more secure, efficient services, transforming corporate decision-making by enhancing corporate digital awareness and realizing smartification of the decision-making process.
As we embark on our new journey in 2023, we are excited to welcome a new era of growth and development. The latest AI large language model and latest development of next-generation innovative technologies provide us with significant catalysts for growth in the new economy sector. As the businesses have viewed this platform supporting newer insights, 36Kr will directly benefit from this historical opportunity and deliver disruptive growth across our 3 core business segments in content, product and commercialization as a prominent brand and a pioneering platform dedicated to serving new economy participants in China.
As they are gearing up for more impressive growth in our core business segments, we are committed to stepping up our capabilities in the creation of high-quality content, further expanding the depth and breadth of our business and actively exploring product innovation. We will also tap into new opportunities to advance and apply innovative technologies such as AIGC to drive revenue growth and enhance our profitability, thereby generating long-term sustainable value to shareholders, customers and society as a whole.
With that, I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Ms. Lin Wei, who will discuss our key financial results. Please go ahead, Lin.